11-year-old Missouri boy shot by his mother has died

BARNHART, Mo. — An 11-year-old boy has died, two days after he was reportedly shot by his mother before she turned the gun on herself.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department says the child died about 5 a.m. Monday at a hospital. His name has not been released.

The shooting happened Saturday at a home in Barnhart, south of St. Louis. Sheriff Dave Marshak says deputies found a woman and boy with gunshot wounds. The woman, identified by Marshak as 49-year-old Tara Kelleher, was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the shooting.

Investigators are searching for a motive in the shooting, but the sheriff's department told FOX2 in St Louis that the mother’s fiancée was sleeping and awoke when he heard the shots and went to see what happened.

"His initial reaction was to reach for the girlfriend, but she wasn't in the bed so he said 'I'll go look for her around the house,' and when he opened the door he found both of them lying there on the bedroom floor," said Sgt. Brian Taylor with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators also found some "unusual text messages" Kelleher sent to her other son a few hours before the shooting.